Tenho trezentas coisas para fazer, redações para escrever, e um vestibular amanhã, mas acho que preciso escrever isso aqui antes. Estou com uma dor de garganta que não passa e essa não é a única coisa que não passa. Daria tudo para não estar na posição que estou. Daria tudo para estar seguindo em frente, abraçando a minha liberdade, e pronto, fim, bati o pé com firmeza e não há vento que me desequilibre. Mas eu perdi. Dentre tudo de bom e tudo de ruim, no fim das contas, perdi. E a dor da perda vem como um martelo nesse pé que bati no chão com tanta força que abriu até uma cratera em volta. Você não pode se aproximar nem se quiser, porque abri essa cratera entre nós, pisei no acelerador e já estou lá na frente. Aí lá na frente, bate o vento e dou ré. Não sei ficar parada, estou tentando aprender a andar devagar.

My dear, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry you had to grow up so early. I’m so sorry you’ve been fighting for so long. And I’m so sorry that you felt so incredibly lost, so early, that you had to find yourself at 19 just to survive. Because this is the thing no one says. Knowing yourself is the loneliest thing in the world, and my dear, I am so sorry, that after every single battle you have fought you still have more ahead. Being hell or high water is being completely alone in a never-ending fight and I’m beginning to think I must find a new way to be, because, sometimes, overflowing is just bleeding, and I’ve got no blood left to bleed.

It’s been a while and I don’t really know how I’m supposed to feel right now so here I am. I don’t know how I feel or what I should do, I guess I’m a bit cloudy, and I bet you felt it. I guess the truth of it all is that today was amazing. But now I miss you and I don’t know what to do with it, this feeling and all the other feelings I have for you so here I am writing about them. When you talked about me being your first girlfriend and how intense it all was, it brought back some old ache, that maybe I’m special but you can still feel the same for someone else, and, also, a new ache: that maybe you’ll realize it’s good enough to have me at arm’s length. As for the old one: I’ve grown enough to realize that it is impossible to feel the same thing for different people, and that what we had, or what we have, I guess, will always be its own. I feel like it’s important to note that this isn’t about reciprocity and needing feelings to always be the same, like I used to a long time ago. Maybe the same insecure root but it’s more about us than it is about me, this time. And as for the latter, I was thrown off by a few things that made me realize that there is a possibility that you’re going to find it enough to have me without having me. Having me at arm’s length. I don’t like being the mediator, and at the same time, it’s the most natural thing in the world for me and I think I must stand my ground on not being that. Stand my ground that you can’t just kiss me and miss me and not be there all the way. Maybe, for me, it’ll have to be either friends or lovers, because this feeling of being in the middle of something is all too familiar to me, as is the anxiety that comes with. This cloudy view. I always preferred the burning sun or pouring rain to cloudy skies, and maybe that’s how it must be, for me.

• a little something I wrote, February 17th

It’s been nothing but pouring rain since we poured our love away and I’m not sure if I’m speaking metaphorically or not. But today is a sunny day and it’s warm, but not too warm, and I can hear music but it’s not loud enough for me to dance to its beat, and the air is as thick as it is soft. Speaking of beat, that’s how my body feels and some part of me believes that the emotional motion sickness has finally set in, my body is asking me to choose a mood and my heart’s trying to explain that we’ll just have to be in the limbo for a few more days. I’ve been writing a lot and posting very little. Honestly, I was thinking a lot, speaking some, and doing none. Nothing that matters, anyways.

I’m proud, however, of how much I’ve grown. I’ve complained about everyone looking at me as if I’m some kind of ticking time-bomb, but maybe I was looking in the mirror in just the same way. It’s force of habit, I suppose. I’ve been settled into this steady pace for a few years now, but at times it still seems new. I talk a lot about my fragile balance, and even my therapist has called me out on that, I’m a lot of things, but I have never been fragile. I’m the king of cups, for god’s sake. That’s the thing, I guess, I’ve always been proud of the way I carry myself, but lately I’ve been proud of the way I nurture the soul that is underneath. It becomes treacherously easy to keep your grace when you’ve faced trouble all your life, but it takes work to be grounded when, inside myself, I’ve known nothing but chaos. Aging has never felt natural, even in the of midst this balance of mine. I’m almost 21 and it feels steady and true, for the first time. I’ve grounded myself and I’ve been proud of this for a while.

I suppose that’s why it feels strange to be face to face, once again, with this ever-lasting fight that goes on within me. From time to time, like clockwork, I have had to stop this yearning for balance and accept the chaos that I so naturally lock inside the back drawer of my mind. The last note I wrote on the subject was about two years ago, and another two years before that. Part of this acceptance means seeing my downfalls for what they are: downfalls. But it also means learning forgiveness, that is, forgiving myself as I would a sister, a mother, a lover, and even a father. Growth is forgiveness and forgiveness is growth and maybe that’s what it means to be a human being, and, honestly, nothing feels stiffer to me than being just that. But that I am. This means many things, and each time the clock runs out I learn more on how to grow as a being of chaos, and I must call myself out again and remind myself that there must be room in my steadiness for the essence of that which I am.

você quer saber o que eu quero, mas já aviso que o que eu quero é decepcionante e extremamente mutável, logo, só posso falar pela eu que sou no momento do querer. e o que eu quero agora é ser uma criança. quero ficar triste. e chorar. quero sentir o que sinto sem o peso de tudo que está assentado em mim e no meu equilíbrio mal feito e remendado. quero que cuidem de mim como de uma criança. no momento, quero não ter 20 anos. quero não ter todas as responsabilidades que assumi na vida adulta. quero voltar atrás. quero um tempo. quero férias de mim. quero férias de tudo, até de você, porque estou exausta de errar e de tentar acertar, e ainda de tentar te descascar até descobrir o que é que você não está compartilhando comigo. exausta de, vulnerável, tentar desenterrar sua vulnerabilidade para sentir que você está aqui comigo para além de perguntar o que tomei no café. que você está aqui. o que eu quero para nós é andar adiante, só isso. mas eu não sei querer e não sei fazer e você não sabe sentir e não sabe compartilhar. então andamos adiante lentamente. e tudo bem. mas sinto seu vazio e sei que você sente o meu.

minha irmã me disse que minha cabeça anda muito acelerada. pensamento tropeçando em pensamento. eu a disse que a praia iria me curar disso, e curou. agora minha cabeça é silenciosa, e que delícia morar no silêncio. que delícia é não enxergar além do que está na minha frente. que reconfortante é a censura dessa névoa em que está minha mente, e que dor familiar sinto ao me guardar nela. já não formulo conclusões apreensivas, apenas existo dentre a apreensão inconclusiva e permito-me existir assim, sem formular e, logo, sem falar. hoje, existo apenas dentro de mim, lá fora é demais para minha frágil existência e forte apreensão. não aguento as coisas como elas são, hoje não. não aguento estar errada, estar enganada, estar no lugar de ardor. então não estou em nada. aliás, minto, gostaria de não estar em nada. mas estou onde sempre estive, em algum grau. estou na névoa.

Começa a dança. Dois passos pra frente, caí. Dois passos pra trás, tropecei no meu próprio pé. Me equilibrei! Dois passos pra frente! Um para trás e mais – ai meu pé. Pisaram no meu pé. De nada adianta meu equilíbrio.

Se eu quiser seguir um caminho diferente, por onde eu sigo? Quase 21, ainda perdida. Ainda cativada por aquilo que apenas confunde. Por onde começo? Corro sem sair do lugar. Dizem para eu não me preocupar, que o tempo dirá tudo. Faz muito tempo que espero o tempo. O compasso do relógio, o meu passo oblíquo, o piso de madeira desgastado pelos meus movimentos repetitivos como couro de casaco velho. Estou tentando me encaixar? Acredito que não, acredito que sempre fui assim desencaixada. Parafuso que não enrosca. E o fuso do parafuso me passa o descompasso do meu passo. Pouco me satisfaz e esse pouco se desfaz à medida que meus pés tortos se cansam de andares tortuosos.

am I a pill too big to swallow? I heard that in a song by an undiscovered artist I like, and I was wondering if we could wait until tomorrow to have another conversation? can we wait a little longer to turn on the bright white lights and grab all the right tools to dissect these feelings?

I was wondering what the expiration date is on the last beautiful thing I said, because the things I say go rotten pretty fast.

what about our conversation, love? about letting ourselves be. about not picking at every seam, about maybe not picking it all apart. what about our conversation, love? about how I believe you don’t know how to go out of your way for me. what about when I said I didn’t feel like your priority, and you threw me to the wolves for suggesting such a thing? I don’t have the energy, my love, not today. today I am beat and battered and sick. and in my ailing ways I have found that every whisper is true, and every sober conversation has an expiration date and every time I claw at my skin, I must do it alone, because you simply do not see. and if you do see, then that’s worse, because why won’t you fight for me like I fight for you?

oh, honey. babe, amore, love. your words mean the world, and the world is at my feet as I drown in its oceans. I’ve been drowning for days and your worry stops at your bedroom door. I didn’t even get a phone call. Just some words. some easy words.